Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Ron is now in hospice.
On heavy pain meds, he mostly sleeps, but at times wakes up and is able
to speak. The women taking (excellent!) care of him are
Spanish-speaking, and he has begun to volunteer quite a few Spanish
words and phrases, which delights them. Still enjoys eating--his meals
are homemade and puréed. We think he would approve of the residence--a
ranch house on a dusty road out in the country (fortunately only six
miles from our house) with chickens out
back and a Fresh Eggs sign on the front fence. Our children and me,
though sad beyond words, are utterly relieved that he is in a safe place
and not in pain. He wrote of our son on his blog--they were reunited
for a few days and got to speak with one another. Love to all of Ron’s friends from Ron and his family.

Ron Scheer’s blog is called BUDDIES IN THE SADDLE and is a compendium
of information about Ron’s favorite topic and you can guess what it is.
He is also the author of several books about early Western novels.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Perhaps because I have an inordinate fondness for MRS. PIGGLE WIGGLE books by Betty MacDonald and perhaps because she wrote the book THE EGG AND I too, I was primed to love this movie as a kid and I did. I also had a fondness for Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray, which didn't hurt my chances of loving it.

Bob and Betty are two city slickers. After the war, Bob decides to make his living raising chickens. Farm life has its challenges, especially for Betty who is used to silk stockings and taxi cabs. This has all the sort of scenes you might expected. It is aided by the great Marjorie Mann (Ma Kettle).

MacDonald wrote the screenplay and Chester Erskine directed. And while looking at it on IMDB I discovered there was a brief MRS. PIGGLE WIGGLE series in the nineties starring Jean Stapleton. Sorry I missed it.

Hey, and pick up the May issue of AHMM to read "The Continental Opposite" by Evan Lewis.

Under the Skin by Michel Faber(Review by Deb)

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

Michel Faber’s Under the Skin
was originally published in 2000. It enjoyed a brief resurgence last
year when Scarlett Johansson starred in an apparently rather loose film
adaptation (I haven’t seen it, so I can’t say how loose). Under the Skin
can be read as an allegory—of gender imbalance, of the exploitation of
the have-nots by the haves, or of the evils of factory farming—but I
prefer to read it as straight-up science fiction and let the allegorical
chips fall where they may. This is helped by Faber’s well-crafted
writing, full of vivid descriptions of the beauty of rural, coastal
Scotland, juxtaposed with scenes of gruesome violence—and, be
forewarned, this is a book with a number of horrifically-gruesome
scenes.

We
initially meet Isserley, the book’s main character, as she drives along
the motorways of Scotland looking for muscular, well-built male
hitchhikers. Based on her exacting physical requirements, we first
assume her goal is obvious: Isserley must be looking for men for sexual
purposes. However, as soon as she picks up a man (always giving him at
least a couple of passes by first), Isserley asks a series of questions
designed to elicit the answers she needs: Does the man have family,
friends, a job? Are there people who will miss him and immediately
raise an alarm if he goes missing? Isserley has found the divorced and
unemployed often give her the responses she requires—which is that the
man in question has no support network and will not be missed for a long
time.

While
Isserley asks her roundabout questions, we see her through the
hitchhikers’ eyes: a short woman, barely tall enough to reach the
pedals, with thick glasses and long auburn hair that obscures most of
her face. Each man notices—and some admire—Isserley’s extremely large
breasts. Several also notice her damaged hands which appear to have
been burned or undergone surgery.

Once
Isserley is confident that her passenger will not be missed, she
activates a mechanism in the car that instantly renders the hitchhiker
unconscious. She then drives to a remote farm where a group of her
compatriots take charge of the victim while Isserley retreats to a
dilapidated cottage to bathe and sleep.

[SPOILERS START HERE]

As
the story progresses, Faber cleverly teases out the basic facts:
Isserley and the other farm workers are from another planet, one of
fast-dwindling air, water, and food resources. On their home planet,
“human beings” (as they refer to themselves) are quadrupeds with
prehensile tails and a somewhat canine appearance. Isserley has been
surgically-altered to resemble a “vodsel” (Earth) woman (apparently,
only pornography was available as a template for the surgery, hence
Isserley’s massive breasts). The surgery has left Isserley by her own
estimation neither a human being nor a vodsel, living a half-life,
scarred and in constant, excruciating pain, requiring daily stretching
exercises just to keep her body from seizing up.

Isserley
is not happy with her lot; she rails against the elites of her home
planet who have mutilated her and the cluelessness of the men on the
farm (only one of whom has also been surgically altered to resemble
people of Earth), but she revels in her access to the beach, to water,
to rain, to snow, and to fresh air. She mourns the loss of her beauty,
destroyed by the surgery she underwent, but she doesn’t miss the
claustrophobic horrors of toiling underground on her home planet.

In
true fiction fashion, a conflict arises when a stranger comes to town.
In this case, the stranger is Amlis Vess, stowaway on a cargo ship from
the home planet and son of their world’s richest man (who also happens
to be Isserley’s boss). Amlis is equal parts infuriatingly entitled,
supremely handsome, and surprisingly clear-eyed and sympathetic.
Despite his patronizing attitude, Isserley (and the reader) must admit
some of what Amlis says makes sense: apparently, “human beings” used to
be “vegetarian,” but since the introduction of highly-prized and
extremely-expensive vodsel meat on their home planet, new sicknesses are
cropping up and people there are dying inexplicably.

While
at the farm, Amliss commits an act of foolhardy idealism that puts the
entire operation at risk. Even though Isserley is angry at Amliss for
what he has done, his comments about the cruelty of farming and eating
vodsels make sense to her. This leads her to being further dissatisfied
with her situation and questioning the entire farming set-up. All of
this information is communicated elliptically, left for the reader to
fill in the blanks, as is the knowledge that the Elite of the home
planet are preparing to send more workers to harvest more meat and that
perhaps they have even designed some sort of breeding program as is
evidenced by their request for a “female vodsel with intact eggs.”

Isserley’s
on-going anger and distraction leads her to make several devastating
mistakes. She picks up a hitchhiker who we can see right away is bad
news—but Isserley, in her fog of misery, fails to register the warning
signs until it is too late. The subsequent scene is horrific and
difficult to read. Not long after this dreadful encounter, Isserley
chooses a victim without sufficient vetting, unaware that he has strong
family ties and will be reported missing immediately. Within 24 hours
of this mistake, Isserley sees on a news program that the police are
searching for the missing man. Of course, by that time, it is too late
for the hitchhiker, but Isserley realizes that her act has inadvertently
exposed the activities of the farm to the authorities and it may now be
too late for all of them. Faber’s writing has been so strong and
Isserley’s story so sympathetic and affecting that we now worry that
time is running out for her.

I
must admit, the ending let me down somewhat. After setting up several
intriguing possibilities for Isserley’s future, Faber ends the story
with a tragic, if perhaps inevitable, fashion. It’s a testimony to
Faber’s skill that, despite the distasteful work Isserley does, we want a
happier ending for this odd, almost endearing, “human being.”

THE MAGUS, John Fowles

Sometimes I think the quality of the books I read has deteriorated over the years. Or maybe the time I devote to reading has decreased. Or maybe I am not as smart. Or maybe writing itself has declined. But this was a favorite book of mine back in the seventies along with Fowles' THE COLLECTOR and THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN. I think this became almost a cult book. Does anyone still read Fowles now? I don't know.

Nicholas Urfe is a young Oxford graduate and aspiring poet. After graduation, he decides to leave
England. He takes a
post teaching English on a Greek island. Struggling with depression and loneliness, he contemplates suicide While wandering around the island, he stumbles upon an estate and meets its owner, a wealthy Greek, Maurice Conchis. They develop a friendship, and Conchis slowly reveals that he may have collaborated with the Nazis during the war.
Nicholas is soon into Conchis's psychological games. At first, Nicholas takes Conchis, (what the
novel terms the "godgames)" to be a joke, but the games grow more complex and he is sucked in. Nicholas loses his ability to determine what is real and becomes a performer
in the godgame.
This sounds sort of absurd to me now. But I forget the vulnerability of the young. And the persuasiveness of a lunatic when rich.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Professor Robin Boyle is an urbanist from the Detroit area. He is on a sabbatical in Melbourne, AU. I asked him to describe what he saw for my blog. Robin and his wife, Christine, came to the Detroit area from their native Glasgow. He has taught urban studies at Wayne State for twenty-five years and been a major player in the resurgence of Detroit.Chris has taught German at The International School

Memo from Melbourne

Take me to the River

March 2015

This city lives on coffee. Within our city block there are at
least twelve cafes open at 7 o’clock ready to dispense long blacks, flat whites
and other seemingly exotic coffee beverages to bleary-eyed office workers. By
ten they’re back for another jolt, escaping their computer screens in the high-rise
office buildings that tower over the streets. By noon they're down at
street-level, perhaps this time sipping a macchiato
as they eat lunch on the ubiquitous marble plinths that surround the office
entrances. And I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that by 3:00 pm they are back at the espresso machine. Based on the
Melbourne coffee exchange market this adds up to $14 per day, just for Joe! Did
I say that you’d be hard pressed to find a Starbucks? These are all small,
often locally owned, businesses, with Turkish, Greek, Italian and Chinese cafes
within minutes of our door. You want more? Check out The Student’s Guide to Coffee in Melbourne, one of scores of
websites dedicated to the black bean and its beverages.

Our apartment is in the heart of downtown, at the edge of
the financial district but only minutes from Southern Cross railway station and
a few more from the Yarra River. The redevelopment of the South Bank of the
Yarra, especially the construction of a public promenade in front of commercial
development, is a model of walkable public spaces delivered through exquisite
urban design. There are three, sometimes four, levels of public or semi-public
spaces for strolling, sitting, eating or just people watching along the river.
The blue-stone walkway connects several slightly wider plazas, activated by street
performance, artists, pop-up cafes or the occasional drunk. The riverbank faces
north so it gets the sun from mid-morning to dusk. The planners put in plane
trees from the get-go so there’s plenty of soft shade, if needed. But behind
this urban gem lies a mess of late twentieth century office and residential high-rise
towers, with more behemoths on the way. The towers are disconnected by an
unreadable streetscape used mainly for getting the workers and residents’ cars
out of grossly expensive underground car parks. Parked only once. Cost $19 for
55 minutes!

But across the river, on the north bank, there’s another
walkway that takes you from downtown east along the Yarra, under Federation
Square to the Birrarung Marr Park and on to the largest concentration of sports
facilities you’ll ever see: the legendary “MCG” - Melbourne Cricket Ground, Rod
Laver Arena, Melbourne Park, AAMI Stadium and more. Tucked alongside this
walkway, and squeezed beside the rail platforms at Flinders Station and the
river is a new bar/café: The Arbory. This is a model of adding a commercial
amenity to an existing public walkway without in any way minimizing the
accessibility of the route. The new linear café is no more than 5 meters wide
yet the designer has filled a dead space by adding the kitchen, bar and seats
(looking out over the river) and maintained a walkway through the facility.

Back to the South Bank. I have mixed feelings about the
Crown Casino that sits close to the Yarra at Clarendon Street. As in Detroit,
this is one big building catering to the tourists and the locals alike. This is
the only full service casino in a gambling-addicted city that is replete with
betting shops, Tatts (the lotto), and
bars offering Pokies (slots
machines). The Crown Casino has its own bridge over the Yarra to whisk the
gamblers into its subterranean parking. Its own freaking bridge across the
river! Yet you can walk into this monster through a dozen different doors
straight off the promenade or the street, eat in a massive food court, drink at
several bars, or go to the movies. Pedestrian-friendly and mixed-use, you bet.

Walk west for five minutes and you are into the South Wharf,
with the same clashing of great public walkways and spaces, up against (mainly)
nondescript 1990’s commercial development.London, Dublin, Melbourne. Eh. Biggest issue here is the omnipresent conflict
between bikes and pedestrians. In some parts, walkers take their life in their
hands as Lycra-clad cyclists speed by on their way to … who knows.

Just over the river, is the Docklands. This once-industrial
area is still under reconstruction and could be a great urban neighborhood, but
don’t hold out too much hope. Again, they are trying to make good use of the public
streets and re-use the original wharfs, and there’s a dedicated tramline into
the CBD. But after 6:00pm, when the offices empty and the coffee addicts make
their jittery way to the station and on to the suburbs, the concrete plazas
feel forlorn and at times even intimidating. To describe the architecture in Docklands
as eclectic and garish is an understatement. Red, yellow and green panels jolt
the eye. And that's just the façade of the NAB headquarters. The blue and pink
finish on the soaring, elliptical, residential towers looks, well, simply
awful.

Without getting too technical, the Docklands are not being
planned, per se. In the context of market-led development, seven companies have
been selected by the State of Victoria to design their own “precincts” spread
across the 190ha. waterfront. Within a very broad set of parameters, developers
have free-reign in terms of use and scale of development in each precinct and
there doesn't appear to be obvious design guidelines, at least for the
blocks.By a build-out date of 2025,
these seven developers are charged with delivering office space for 60,000
employees and more than 20,000 new residents.

The results of the first phases of development are confusing
and disconnected. The new public spaces appear as an afterthought. The limited
retail buildings, mostly bars and restaurants, lie close to the waterfront but
separated from the tall structures behind. And the bars and cafes integrated
with the offices are closed or empty in the evening. Will the docklands survive
this architectural assault? Not sure. I wouldn’t take the bet.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

There are so many great sidekicks in literature. I guess this is one of my favorites. It's not always easy to get it rights. Emma Peel may have been too divertingly pretty in THE AVENGERS. Iago might have been a lot more interesting than Othello. Same for Lady MacBeth. Hap and Leonard (Lansdale) might be too evenly balanced to consider one a sidekick.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

I saw this paragraph in a 30 January 2015 BBC article about the "Psychology of Everyday Evil.""
... relevant to internet trolls. “They appear to be the internet
version of everyday sadists because they spend time searching for people
to hurt.” Sure enough, an anonymous survey of trollish commentators
found that they scored highly on dark tetrad traits, but particularly
the everyday sadism component – and enjoyment was their prime
motivation. Indeed, the bug-crushing experiment suggested that everyday
sadists may have more muted emotional responses to all kinds of
pleasurable activities – so perhaps their random acts of cruelty are
attempts to break through the emotional numbness." They get up in the
morning, get their first cup of the day, and then they go looking for
people to spew hate on.

BUFFALO BILL was on TV for a year and a half in the mid eighties. Dabney Coleman played an egotistical, often obnoxious, TV show host. Geena Davis and Joann Cassidy also starred. If you prefer likable characters, this was not the show for you. Obviously Brandon Tartikoff did not because he cancelled the show precipitously and has said it was his biggest mistake . This show was copied by THE LARRY SANDERS show a few years later. Loved both of them but found BUFFALO BILL a bit more lovable due to his buffoonish antics. Coleman never quite found the perfect vehicle for his talents. A shame.

Monday, March 16, 2015

This was one of those times when I really wished I had read the book first. I liked many things about the movie, especially the look of it, the setting (Greek) directorial decisions, and the chemistry of the two male leads. But for me it also needed chemistry between the female and both male leads. And, as so often is the case, Kristen Dunst was unable to convince me that she felt particularly passionate about either man, especially the one she should for plot purposes.

I find her a curiously cold actress. Not untalented but only effective in certain parts--much like Grace Kelly. I certainly recommend seeing this movie because of its richness in suspense, the look of it, the story. You will forget, at times, it wasn't filmed in 1962 when it is set. The music could come from any movie made during that period. There are times you would swear Alfred Hitchcock must have directed it. As always I was impressed with Oscar Issac and Viggo Mortensen. But on the whole, a disappointment as she doesn't provide the motivation necessary.What movie didn't work for you due to a lack of chemistry. Does that ever happen in a book? Does an author ever fail to inject enough romantic sizzle into his/her characters?

Friday, March 13, 2015

“Forgotten
book” might be the wrong way to describe Dan J. Marlowe’s The Name of
the Game is Death. For hard-core fans of brutal, fast-paced noir, the
book is anything but forgotten-- it is, in fact, considered a
cornerstone of the genre. But despite that, in the fifty years since its
first publication it’s been out of print more often than in, and most
casual readers of crime fiction have never heard of it. For me, The
Name of the Game is Death is one of the essential five or ten books in
the world of hardboiled/noir.

The story: a career criminal calling himself Roy Martin (more on
his name later) holes up after a botched bank robbery, while his
partner sends him monthly allotments of their take. But when the money
stops coming, Martin suspects the worst and sets off to find out what
happened. The small town he finds turns out to be a cesspool of
corruption and hypocrisy that makes even Martin’s twisted morality seem
sane and rational by comparison.

In the hands of most writers, this rather simple plot wouldn’t be
particularly noteworthy, but Marlowe paints a vivid picture of Martin,
not just through his actions but also in a set of chilling flashbacks
to Martins’ youth and young manhood, where all the signs of a
sociopathic personality begin to emerge. And the steps Martin takes to
find out what happened to his partner and to retrieve his money
reinforce him as a deeply disturbed man.

Quite simply, he enjoys killing and hurting people; in one
memorable scene, he’s unable to become sexually aroused for intercourse,
and admits to himself that the only thing that really turns him on is
bloodshed-- in a later scene, he brutalizes a woman who attempted to
set him up, and he’s able to “perform” without a hitch.

So all in all, Roy Martin is a seriously messed-up sociopath, with
barely a redeeming feature-- aside from a fondness for animals. Why do
we find ourselves almost rooting for him? Because almost everyone else
he encounters is a hollow, lying hypocrite. Martin is the only
character who is actually true to himself… much to the horror of
everyone else.

The
climax to Th e Name of the Game is Death is stunningly violent, very
dark, and totally chilling-- not the sort of ending that would cause
you to expect a sequel. And yet Marlowe did indeed bring the character
back a few years later for a book that was almost-but-not-quite as good
as the first, One Endless Hour. In that one we discover that Martin’s
name is actually Drake (which is how he’s often referred to when
discussing The Name of the Game is Death).

More books about “The Man with Nobody’s Face” would follow, each
one a bit softer than the one before, until almost all signs of the
near-psychopathic Martin were gone, replaced by a repentant crook who
now worked for the government.

But lovers of dark, violent tales will always remember him as the blood-thirsty killer calling himself Roy Martin.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

We are in the process of looking for a new house nearer to my son and to MOVIE THEATERS and also to our friends who all live on the other side of Detroit. We would consider renting but the area only has garden apartments and we're past the stage where that is appealing.

We live in a very large but vertical house now. In other words, three floors. Much more space than we need at 2400 square feet.

We go back and forth in what we really require in a house. What things do you require?

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

No, not the book and not the movie although John Houseman is in both, in the role he seemed born to play. “

"The study of law is something new and unfamiliar to most of you,
unlike any other schooling you have ever known before. You teach
yourselves the law, but I train your minds. You come in here with a
skull full of mush and, if you survive, you leave thinking like a
lawyer."

This series debuted in 1978 and was on for four years. James Stephens played the leading role of a student at Harvard Law. Four years was probably too long. Law school itself is only three.But it was an intelligent drama that did not feature cops or hospitals, a rare thing then and now. And based on my son's experience in law school, fairly accurate.

THE WITCHING NIGHT, by Leslie Waller (writing as C. S. Cody), came
out in 1952. I think it had a hardcover publication before its Dell
paperback incarnation.

It's certainly a
better-written book than MARK OF THE MOON*** (though I have to give MARK
higher marks when it comes to cover design, front and back). You can
tell that almost from the first page of this first-person narrative.
Waller has a good way with words; his protagonist is cursed by a
suburban Chicago cult and suffers the headaches of the damned, and
damned if his descriptions of the hero's torments weren't
enough to make ME start feeling as if I needed an aspirin.

So
the narrative pulls you along as the skeptical hero gets thrust into
this dark world of banally evil, slimily evil, and
perhaps-inadvertently-evil characters (the last of which is, of course, a
beautiful, alluring woman).

The narrator, a
doctor, has a wise-cracking receptionist (who, for some reason never
explained, is never given a name or is clearly described; she's the one
who tells the "formaldehyde" knock-knock joke -- the only part of the
book that I remembered; it occurs around page 167 of this 256-page, so I
know I must have read at least that far the first time through).

What
I didn't like about the book is that the seemingly polite demon society
with which he gets involved (think along the lines of THE SEVENTH
VICTIM or maybe the folks in ROSEMARY'S BABY) is never adequately
described -- not their motives
(though he speculates about them) nor their demises (why what happens
to one person happens to her is never made clear -- not to me, at
least), nor their exact relationships to one another. Maybe we're
supposed to speculate, but I was waiting for that one moment, that one
chapter, when All Was Revealed, which I didn't get.

The
central love-hate relationship between him and the apparently unwitting
priestess of the cult also seems to have ups and downs based on the
exigencies of plot rather than any logical unfolding.

I
couldn't help but wonder if the original ms. of THE WITCHING NIGHT was
much longer but that the publisher told Waller to cut it down (which may
be why he resorted to a pseudonym).

Well, for
what it is, it's an engrossing page-turner. And maybe I shouldn't carp
too much. MARK OF THE MOON has a long explanation at the end, tying up
all sorts of loose ends, but, since
it's inferior in terms of execution, it's not particularly satisfying,
so who knows if clarification and explanation would have made THE
WITCHING NIGHT any better?

(Anthony added this to explain where this comparison came from) He purchased both books recently but read MARK OF THE MOON first.

***"John Norris is probably right when he describes MARK OF THE
MOON as ersatz Dennis Wheatley -- not particular well written or
engrossing. (Of course, I confess that I only read one Wheatley
novel, THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, and, although the story was of interest, I
wasn't particularly impressed with the writing in that book.) I'm a
little more than a third of the way through MARK OF THE MOON, and I can
attest to the less-than-scintillating writing. The writer is dropping
big clues as to the cultish conspiracy at the heart of the book (though
the clueless protagonist is having a hard time putting anything
together); it's not a slog to get through the pages because one does
want to see where everything is going to end up (and if the expected
twists do occur), but it's no page turner. And the plot is familiar to
anyone who's seen any of Hitchcock's spy thrillers or films like
ROSEMARY'S BABY.

"I am sure I read this book
when my dad had it, but I remember nothing about it except for one
detail, which the protagonist can't figure out yet. The title mark is a
small, crescent-shaped brand that a number of women sport
under their left breast. I imagine it will prove to indicate that they
are initiates into the cult. The protagonist's wife had such a mark; she
told him it was a birthmark. Now she's gone, fled back to the little
French village where she was born, taking their year-old son with them
-- which is what has brought our hero back to this place where he spied
for the Allies during WWII (and met his wife, a member of the
Resistance). Since some 20 kids have disappeared from the region in the
last two years, there's little doubt in the reader's mind that child
sacrifice plays a part in these unholy rituals, but the protagonist
hasn't figured it out yet. Oh, well, he's got 120 pages to go."

I
thought that I had written to SOMEone (apparently not you) when I
finished MARK OF THE MOON, but I couldn't find that letter anywhere.
(This e-mail system online is very unwieldy and doesn't let me search of
messages the way I would like.) Well,
MARK OF THE MOON, although it holds one's interest (partly because the
reader wonders when the protagonist is going to wise up and catch up
with him), isn't the greatest -- there's one really stupid part where he
wakes up in a cave and accidentally tips over a candle, which burns a
message that's left for him so that, going by the letter's charred
remains, he makes all sorts of misinterpretations. Talk about
contrivances! And there was too much of him stumbling around in that
cave for my tastes. But his climactic battle with the main bad guy is
pretty well described -- the writer actually makes it exciting. His
attitude toward the major woman in the plot is typical, I guess, of male
attitudes of the time, but it's kind of annoying. (Can't say more
without giving stuff away.)

Thursday, March 05, 2015

I read Henning Mankell a lot while in CA. Somehow his themes, his setting, and his detective rarely let me down. He has just enough personal detail, enough police politics, enough stuff about what has happened in Sweden since 1990 to keep me going. And he's pretty good at plotting too.

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

I am not sure of the psychology behind this, but every month I find myself resisting reading the book chosen by the dozen women in my book club. Even if it's a book I chose myself! This was one I had not heard of until I was told this would be the March choice.

And it seemed like a book that would not be very discussable. Lots of times, the books I like the most turn out to lead to poor discussions.

I am not sure about the discussability of THE BOYS IN THE BOAT: NINE AMERICANS AND THEIR EPIC QUEST FOR GOLD AT THE 1936 BERLIN OLYMPICS, but I sure enjoyed reading it. A book about rowing? Seems improbable that anyone could make it a page turner but David James Brown succeeded.

The reason he was able to do this was because he was able to pull in so much beside the University of Washington's rowing program in the thirties. The book looks at the problems of poverty in the 1930s, the dust bowl, Nazi German's rise to power, the Olympic movement, the story of rowing itself, the lives of the coach, the boat builder and some of the athletes. Most especially it gave us the life of Joe Rantz, a rower who had an exceptionally hard childhood. His summer job while in college was hanging from cliffs and using a 75 pound drill to build a damn. Most of the boys came from humble means, which means we cheer for them all the more. Brown was especially adept at exploring the psychology of successful rowing. A very particular sort of sport.

I enjoyed this book immensely and am anxious to hear what my book group members think of it.

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

This is an Argentinian movie directed by Jorge Daggero made in 2005. It concerns the havoc wreaked on a wealthy woman with the financial crisis of 2001 in Argentina.

Beba and and Dora (wealthy woman and her maid) have been together for thirty years. But gradually, Beba finds herself unable to pay Dora or any of her bills. She is also unable to do any of the chores Dora performs. She is alienated from her daughter and is getting less and less money from her former husband. Apparently they have gone through money left to her from her mother.

This is a character study of the two women, who dance around each other's grievances and issues for ninety minutes. It might be too small of a movie for some but I found the subtlety of their performances a treat.

Monday, March 02, 2015

A bunch of people read scary three minute stories at Noircon back in October. If this appeals to you, here are the links. For the life of me, I can't remember what I read. I think I am on the first day. Hate hearing my voice, so....

Three Minutes of Terror, Part 1, is now live!
Feel free to spread any or all of these links around, whatever you think
works best:

About Me

Patricia Abbott is the author of more than 125 stories that have appeared online, in print journals and in various anthologies. She is the author of two print novels CONCRETE ANGEL (2015) and SHOT IN DETROIT (2016)(Polis Books). CONCRETE ANGEL was nominated for an Anthony and Macavity Award in 2016. SHOT IN DETROIT was nominated for an Edgar Award and an Anthony Award in 2017. A collection of her stories I BRING SORROW AND OTHER STORIES OF TRANSGRESSION will appear in 2018.